Jesse Scheckner
A bill to further update Florida’s condo safety laws and give unit owners more options when covering the cost of inspections and repairs is en route to the Senate after clearing the House floor.
House members voted 113-2 for HB 913, which makes numerous changes to laws passed after the 2021 collapse of the Champlain Towers South condo in Surfside.
It’s the most recent bill to tackle the issue by Miami Republican Rep. Vicki Lopez, who has received praise for legislation she previously passed with Fleming Island Republican Sen. Jennifer Bradley, along with some criticism about cost difficulties that prompted some unit owners to sell their homes.
HB 913 and its Senate analog (SB 1742) aim to address that issue by enabling condo associations to use lines of credit to pay for pricey structural integrity reserve studies (SIRS) and clarifying that only buildings with three habitable stories must comply with SIRS and milestone inspection requirements.
“I did not come to the House to become a housing expert, but here we find ourselves,” said Lopez, who has been affectionately dubbed the House’s “Condo Queen” for her focus on the issue.
“(I am) prepared to continue to do the work to make sure that we have listened. I’m telling you this is landmark legislation that finally does provide the relief, the financial relief, that all of our condo owners deserve.”
Like its predecessors, HB 913 does a lot. It guarantees condo associations a route to voting online, requires the Department of Business and Professional Regulation to create a standard form for SIRS and set criteria for determining the useful life of condo components, and allows more flexibility for excluding certain low-cost repairs or replacements from the SIRS total.
It also mandates that the minutes of a condo board’s meetings from the past year must be available online to association members, requires more transparency from hotels that also contain condos and prohibits the person or company that conducted the SIRS from having a financial interest in the person or company that conducts the repairs.
Democratic Reps. Robin Bartleman of Weston and Felicia Robinson of Miami Gardens lauded Lopez for her efforts and responsiveness and thanked her for visiting their districts to speak with condo owners there.
Lopez made herself available “at all hours of the evening (and) early in the morning,” Bartleman said, adding, “It just shows what a great member you are and how you really try to meet the needs of everybody.”
Other Democrats in the chamber, including Reps. Anna Eskamani of Orlando, Mitch Rosenwald of Oakland Park and Marie Woodson of Hollywood, offered similar plaudits.
Rep. Dianne Hart, a Tampa Democrat, asked Lopez if she’d be willing to amend her item to require condo associations to allow electronic voting rather than what it currently does, which is require condo boards to create a ballot question on doing so for the association’s next election if 25% of unit owners call for it. Lopez said she would prefer to see how her bill works before making additional changes.
Lopez credited a woman she spoke with while visiting Bartleman and Robinson’s districts with giving her the idea for the line of credit option. Miami Beach Republican Rep. Fabián Basabe improved the bill’s hotel condo aspect, she said, and a constituent of Stuart Republican Rep. John Snyder’s proposed requiring the uniform SIRS form.
“When the Speaker says that this is a member-driven process, it most certainly is,” Lopez said. “And this bill demonstrates how we do that.”
A contentious section in the bill’s first draft would have blocked Florida’s state-run insurer of last resort, Citizens Property Insurance, from issuing or renewing policies for condo owners and associations that don’t comply with building inspection requirements. The provision was a response to the fact that, as of last month, most of the more than 11,000 condo buildings with three or more levels that must comply with relatively new rules set in recent Sessions hadn’t done so by the Dec. 31 deadline.
Lopez deleted the section in the bill’s final committee stop last week.
The two House members who voted “no” on HB 913 were Republican Reps. Mike Caruso of Delray Beach and Kiyan Michael of Jacksonville. Neither debated its merits Wednesday, the first time either had a chance to vote on the measure.
HB 913 is now likely to be taken up alongside SB 1742 when the Senate bill faces a floor vote Thursday.
